Follow that Blog!A Guide to Keeping up with Blogs,

News and Tweetswith Free Resources

Kel KarpinskiDecember 12, 2011

What is a blog?

• short for "web-log" or "weblog"o coined by Jorn Barger in 1997

• blog coined by Peter Merholz in 1999 when he split weblog to read "We blog"

• OED says "A frequently updated web site consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources, etc., typically run by a single person, and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary"

So what is RSS then?• "RDF Site Summary"

• commonly referred to as "Really Simple Syndication" • RSS feed is a way of providing online content that is

frequently updated such as news or blogs

• the information in a RSS feed gets published once but can be viewed by many different programs

You can tell if a blog or website has an RSS feed by looking for this icon

Or sometimes...

it'll look like this

or this

Blog readers(also called RSS aggregators or feed readers)

• collect all of your blogs, news and sometimes even tweets in one location

• automatically updates so you don't have to manually check each website

Google Reader

www.google.com/reader

www.my.yahoo.com

www.netvibes.com

Any questions?

Thank you!